I am currently going through a similar situation. I have been playing Roblox for almost 11 years now, and I am a completely different person now than I was 6 or 7 years ago. I can confidently say that I behave completely different on this platform than my former 14 year old self, especially since I’ve been accepted on the developer forums. I feel completely paranoid every time I log onto this website, because any guy with a vendetta against me can report an old asset in my inventory which can result in a 3 day ban for hate speech. I can confirm that I haven’t done anything serious to break the Roblox community guidelines, however I still have bans on my account due to content that was completely acceptable years prior to my ban.
This is what I wake up to on my birthday:
Based off this screenshot, it is literally impossible to tell where I exactly violated the Terms of Service except for the shirt I uploaded, but I know exactly what this shirt was, and I managed to find it in my old videos on my old YouTube channel.
This is the shirt I have been banned for, a hockey jersey with the number 9 on it and the words “New Bloxton” on the front, which is the name for a fictional city I created on Roblox. The tattoo’s have no symbols or writing on them, for it is just a simple tribal sleeve, here is shirt I copied the tattoo’s from.
I’d like to point out I was 15 when I made this, and I wasn’t the best artist, so I used a lot of templates at the time instead of creating it myself. Also anything on the shoulder, or left arm was not on the shirt I uploaded. Just the right arm tattoo’s and the upper half was covered by the sleeve of the shirt.
With this information in mind, there is a very thin line between content that’s no longer acceptable. We are no longer notified if an asset is no longer acceptable on the platform. Instead the only notice we receive are bans, which almost 100% of the time is a hate speech ban. Now, according to the official Roblox Community Guidelines, what classifies hate speech is the following:
As far as my eyes concern, I see nothing on my shirt that offends a race, religion, disability, gender, age, or veteran status. It is a simple sports jersey based off a fictional city. I took my time to ask the moderators on this website, why was this moderated for hate speech, and this was the reply I’ve gotten:
Now if you scroll up to the previous screenshot of my 3 day ban page, you would see I titled the shirt “GS9 shirt 1”. However, even if this is
gang related, I still recieved a ban for hate speech, which has
nothing to do with gangs according to the
Roblox Community Guidelines. Now that we are on the topic of
gang affiliation, I’d like to point out that I’ve grown up around people like this, and I can confirm that modern day gangs no longer sport the typical
red and blue outfits.This was a movement referred as “color banging” which died over 15 years ago. With that being said, the shirt has no color affiliation, nor does it have any gang affiliation. It is a typical Jersey, and had I titled it something like “Hockey Team” or “New Bloxton Hockey Gear”, it would have never gave me a 3 day ban. I feel as if moderators gave me no chance, and didn’t even take into consideration the date I uploaded this shirt, and the content that’s actually on the shirt. This shirt was uploaded 2015, and was approved because of its visual content, but 4 years later it was moderated because of the name given to the shirt.
Things like this happen too often to players on this website, and it is unfortunate, however I believe with the right staff taking this into consideration we could change things. Again, there is a very thin-line to what is acceptable and what is no-longer acceptable on this platform, and we aren’t informed of anything at all, nor do we have the feature to remove our own items before Roblox can take actions into their own hands. In cases like these, I feel as the punishment players receive is extremely severe. There are many alternatives and different ways the staff could’ve handled this situation, to where both parties are happy at the end of the day.
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Roblox staff could’ve simply [content deleted] the name, and warned my account that names like this are inappropriate and not acceptable on this platform.
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Roblox staff could’ve deleted the shirt all together, and warned me about the name.
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Roblox staff could have personally sent me a message on the developer forums or emailed me about this issue, and I could simply change the name myself.
Another issue I would like to discuss is misrepresentations of my bans, as far as I am concerned is in the Community Guidelines, Roblox says nothing about gang affiliation in the hate speech category, however when I ask moderators why I have been flagged for such violation this is the response I receive:
Little to any information was given to how exactly I broke these rules, in a nutshell, when I asked how I violated the rules I was told: “You broke them and hate speech is bad so you will still be banned”.
I feel like the appeals team could do a much better job in this aspect, I feel as if they rarely check situations accordingly, and unless they are forwarded the complaint from someone on the developer relations team, they will not bat an eye to your complaint and will continue to give you bare-bone answers, and just repeat the same exact thing said when you log in your account:
It is very unfortunate when a veteran player for over 10 years and a loyal fan to Roblox has to experience such poor customer support. I am not trying to pick a fight with any of the moderation staff, but I am trying to gain justice for myself, and anyone else going through this situation by sharing my experience.
What I feel that needs to be drastically improved on this platform is the following:
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Moderators actually look into things before they throw out bans.
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When a complaint is given, its given for a reason, please second check before you instantly dismiss it. If I thought I deserved the ban, I wouldn’t waste my time or the moderators time by writing a complaint on the forums.
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Please give us accurate reasons to why we received a ban. I am sure both me and @Scriptos scenarios have nothing at all to do with Hate speech, in my case it was gang-affiliation, however the community guidelines has no information that connects hate speech to gang affiliations. I’d be much more accepting of my ban had they said: Moderator Note: This content is not appropriate. Gang violence or gang affiliation is not allowed on Roblox.
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Please give us better answers other than “you did bad, now you get banned”. Again, anyone that tries to write a complaint about this receives a 2 sentence reply by the NestofDragons. Now I know its very difficult to sit at a computer and handle complaints all day, I get complaints about exploiters every day in my game, so I don’t blame you. However, could you guys hire more people to work on this part of Roblox, hell, you really don’t have to hire anybody to be honest. I’m sure many of the community members would do this for free, I’d be happy to moderate things just because I am making the community a better place. (Not saying I’m fit for moderation but you get my point.)
I really hope someone of importance see’s my little scenario, and takes what I said into consideration. If this sounds like a rant or me being angry, I’d like to clear things that I am not trying to rant or bash any of the staff members, I am just trying to convey my message enough to where they actually take notice instead of just blinking and looking at the next complaint.
Thank you for reading, and have a blessed day.